Centris 610 and other things

[joshc]

After recently acquiring 8 Macs, and 1 old PC, I have more than enough projects to keep my time occupied, but that didn't stop me buying this...

What is odd is that it doesn't look like a Centris 610 to me -- it looks like an LC of some kind. Hopefully someone with lots of knowledge of these machines can help clarify it

I don't mind if the seller got the model wrong, the whole lot only cost £10 so I cannot complain.

I haven't collected it yet, just waiting for the seller to answer my message about collection.

 

[LaPorta]

That appears to be an LC of some sort almost certainly.

 

[Solvalou]

The Centris was never in the "pizza-box" form factor. So either whoever owned it put the wrong sticker on it, or it's an error on the listing.

There was the Quadra 605 though. If you have one of them, you got a great deal. But a tenner for whatever "pizza-box" you got is a damn good deal.

 

[joshc]

Thanks guys, that's what I thought. I am picking it up tonight. :lc:

 

[joshc]

OK, well 150 miles of driving later...(oops, a bit further than I thought originally)...

This was definitely worth getting, it isn't a Centris as I thought but actually an LC II with some bonus goodies that I didn't even know they were selling...

The owner was given all this stuff 25 years ago and never used any of it, it's just been in a box since. I was a bit worried when she mentioned this, as I just had that dreaded thought that the PRAM battery would've exploded by now...

Yes, that is an SE/30 set-up guide, and the owner's manual, and the manual for a Macintosh II !

Luckily, the LC looks pretty much brand new inside.

I haven't tried to power anything on yet. Besides, the external hard drive is missing a SCSI cable and I don't have a spare one. And I don't have a monitor that I can use with the LC yet, I used to have a few spare  monitors but don't have any at the moment.

 

[MOS8_030]

Good score. Always nice to get all the accompanying ephemera.

 

[joshc]

Woke up this morning, and while I could wait for a SCSI cable and monitor...thought I’d just power the stuff on anyway to see what happens. 
 

I've been very lucky again, both the LC II and the external drive power on and I can hear the disks spin up fine, no untoward noises. The LC II made its wonderful boot chime, nice and loud too. I’m going to leave them powered up for a while as I don’t want to be too hard on these old drives. 
 

Can’t wait to see what’s on these. I have ordered a 15” Sharp monitor off eBay for £10 delivered, and put in offers on a SCSI cable and db15 to VGA converter. Hopefully this time next week I’ll be able to see what’s stored on the drives! 

 

[LaPorta]

Awesome! Just be sure to re-cap that LC II!

 

[joshc]

Awesome! Just be sure to re-cap that LC II!

Yup, all my macs need recapping, aiming to do them as soon as time allows it.

 

[joshc]

Awesome! Just be sure to re-cap that LC II!

Yup, all my macs need recapping, aiming to do them as soon as time allows it.

 

[joshc]

Finally got a VGA adapter for the LC II. It cost me a sweet penny from eBay to get an adapter shipped from Australia, there were no others available!! Slightly annoying because I'm sure I have one already somewhere that I couldn't find, and I remember when these were cheap/easy to get...

Anyway...it's now hooked up, so I could check out what was left on the hard drive.

To my pleasant surprise, this was obviously used as a gaming machine at one point, as there's a lot of games on this thing!

A copy of Quark is on the drive, and it's registered to Hackney council. Someone left some business files on here, including an inventory of Apple equipment with value at the time.

I installed SimCity 2000, which runs like crap on this, and Pathways into Darkness. I also installed Bonkheads from the original floppies which works well, although it did need Sound Manager 3.0 extension, which thankfully comes with SimCity 2000... It's almost like I planned it this way (I didn't).

I cleaned up the system files, there were a lot of unnecessary system control panels, fonts and extensions which I've now disabled. It is now running a lot smoother.

I also installed RAM Doubler which I tend to find helps with running some stuff, afterall this is an LC II so it doesn't have much RAM anyway.

Images here as I had trouble uploading images using Firefox (macOS):
 

https://imgur.com/a/vyiCZQ0

 

[nglevin]

I still see a number of db15 to VGA adapters on eBay, with and without dip switches, from Chinese and USA sellers.

It helps if you zero in on the exact type of product and its specs, for upgrades. Model numbers, type of RAM (30 pin SIMMs), and so on.

If you want speed, you probably will be happier with setting up a hard drive, partition, or equivalent with System 6.0.8L for most bits, especially if you're planning on keeping the RAM stock. There will definitely be some games that require System 7 but most games (even Marathon fwiw) and HyperCard will run fine on 6.